


The Journey Doesn't End Here

by Mad_Birdy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Boy King of Hell Sam Winchester, Endgame Dark!Sastiel, Fallen Angel Castiel (Supernatural), Gen, M/M, Sam Winchester on Demon Blood
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-09 02:59:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14707838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mad_Birdy/pseuds/Mad_Birdy
Summary: "How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart you begin to understand... there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend. Some hurts that go too deep, that have taken hold." - J.R.R. TolkienSam has watched Dean die at the claws of hellhounds, and he's decided he's through. The demon blood isn't worth it; revenge isn't worth it. He's going to leave the hunting life, for good, and try to salvage what he can.As he finds out, though, it's easier said than done.UNFINISHED AND ABANDONED.





	1. The Threads of an Old Life

**Author's Note:**

> I will post content warnings before each chapter, just in case, as well as update the fic tags and archive warnings accordingly.
> 
> This chapter only contains a vivid nightmare. It will get more intense as the story progresses.

Sam Winchester growls at the demon. “Tell me how I bring back my brother.”

The demon shrugs, brushing imaginary lint from the sleeve of his suit. “I’m afraid there’s no way to bring back your brother. The deal is permanent.”

“That’s unfortunate for you.” The younger Winchester’s face is full of rage as he stabs the demon, snarling as the yellow light flashes through the demon’s meatsuit. With a flick of his wrist, he withdraws the blade from corpse and steps away, breathing heavy. He runs through the list in his head. Fifteen demons so far, all of them saying the same thing: there’s no way to rescue his brother from Hell. It can’t be done.

Like a wave, the full reality of that truth hits him and he falls to his knees in the middle of the demon’s trap, screaming at the sky. “It should be me!” His head falls forward in defeat and he looks at the body lying in front of him.  _ There was a man in there _ . The thought moves through his already crowded mind, adding to cacophony that it’s become recently.  _ Another innocent man caught in the crossfire of my fucked up life _ . “It should be me.” He repeats it quieter this time, tears filling his eyes and overflowing down his face.

~~~

Two hours later, Sam packs his bags as Ruby walks into the dingy motel room they rented. She watches him closely for a moment. His movements are sharp, determined, the lines of his body rigid and unyielding. “Sam?” she asks, voice jarring in the quiet of the room. “What’re you doing?”

“Leaving,” he says, voice gruff. He zips up his duffels and turns to her, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“Leaving?” She takes a few steps towards him, eyebrows furrowed and hand half-raised, palm up, in question.

“I didn’t stutter.”

“Where exactly do you think you’re going? We’ve got things to do.”

Sam shakes his head. “No,  _ we _ don’t. I’ve got things to do, a life to lead. Forget revenge on Lilith, forget the demon blood. I don’t want any of that, not any more.”

She steps closer yet again, and Sam takes the smallest step back. “Then what do you want, Sam?”

“A normal life.” The words are quiet, almost hesitant, but firm.

“Normal?” She laughs mirthlessly, taking one last step towards him. Sam relaxes slightly, crossing his arms. “You’re not normal, Sam. You’ve never been normal.”

“Maybe not. But I was doing pretty damn well there for a while, before Azazel screwed it up. So I’m leaving. It’s what Dean would have wanted.”

“Dean would have wanted you to get revenge for him!”

Sam shakes his head, turning his back to her and grabbing his duffels. “If you think that, then you never knew him, or me.” He turns back to her and moves past to leave. She grabs his arm, trying to stop him, but he just yanks free and goes to the door. Stepping forward, she tries to follow him, but finds herself stuck. He turns with a smirk, eyebrows raised. “Did you think I wouldn’t expect you to try to stop me?”

She looks up, shoulders slumping as she notices the devil’s trap on the ceiling that Sam had maneuvered her into. “Fine,” she says, crossing her arms. “Go.”

Sam looks at her seriously. “I wasn’t asking your permission.” He leaves, locking the door behind him and dropping the keys into the bushes.

The familiar rumble of the Impala soothes the hard lines of his shoulders as he pulls out onto the highway. With one on the road, he reaches over to the mp3 dock on the radio and turns it on, hitting shuffle on his library. If pressed, he’d probably admit that tempting Dean’s ghost into haunting him was just as much a reason for the installation of the dock as was the fact that most of the music Sam liked wasn’t on cassettes. As it is, he waits a half second for the ghost of his brother to appear, berating him for his taste in music and for mutilating his baby, but just as quickly he shakes away the notion.

_ Dean’s dead _ , he reminds himself.  _ Dead and in hell. He’s not coming back to haunt me. If he was he’d have been here a long time ago _ . He can’t tell if it’s relief or disappointment that floods his veins at the self-reminder.

~~~

Two sleepless days and eight state borders later, Sam pulls into a hotel parking lot. The hotel is familiar; it’s the same one that the taxi from the airport had dropped him off at after he’d arrived in Stanford the first time. His limbs are heavy with fatigue as he steps out of the car and grabs his duffels. The desk clerk takes one glance at the dark bags beneath his eyes and weary slump of his shoulders before booking him the closest available room. With a sympathetic smile, the clerk hands him the key and tells him room service operates all day. Sam manages a grateful smile in return before stumbling to the room.

The door locks behind him as he collapses on the bed in exhaustion. There was a reason he’d driven non-stop across the country to get to Stanford, and his mind tells him he should get up and shower to stay awake. But his body prevails, sleep weighing him down as he closes his eyes and drifts off.

> _ His brother’s screams fill the air, joined by the snarls of hellhounds. The two sounds he never wants to hear again reverberate through his dreams. Flashes of red, of torn flesh and bright blood flowing through fingers. His shaking hands fill his vision: taking the amulet from his brother’s neck, building the simple coffin with Bobby, placing his brother in it, covering it with dirt. The mix of sounds and images play on repeat in his mind, like one of Dean’s rare old records that begins to skip when it reaches the end. The end of Dean. _

Sam jolts awake, chest heaving as he stares blankly forward. He doesn’t remember where he is, the nightmare taking away any immediate rational thought, so he takes a moment to ground himself in small details. Sweat slicks his skin, makes his clothes stick to him. Rough fabric scratches his cheek; the comforter of the bed he’s lying on. His eyes focus, landing on the bedside table. Alarm clock reads 1:53 a.m. Stationery with the hotel logo finally brings all the pieces crashing back into place.

With a groan, he pushes himself to a sitting position on the edge of the bed, feet hitting the floor. His head tilts to the side as he regards the laces of his boots, remembering the first time Dean had showed him how to tie his shoes. “It’s easy, Sammy,” he’d said with all the confidence of a nine-year-old speaking to a five-year-old. “Here, I’ll show you how Mama taught me.” His hands had moved as he spoke in a singsong voice, tying his own shoe.

“Cross them over, left under right, pull them tight. First runs this way, second goes the other way through the hole. Make them the same, left over right, pull them tight.” Little Sam had tried to mimic his brother’s movements, his tongue poking out of his mouth, but his hands were too clumsy yet to master the knots. He’d ended up making a mess of the strings, but Dean had just ruffled his hair and fixed them, tying them slowly so Sam could learn.

Now, Sam’s eyes water with fresh tears. Every little thing reminds him of the older brother he’s lost. He quickly unties his boots and toes them off, heading to the bathroom to start the shower running. As the water heats, he pads down the familiar hall to the vending machine for a bottle of water. He remembers his first ever night here, nearly seven years ago. For a moment, as he stands in the slowly steaming bathroom, he wonders if any of his old friends would recognize him now. He doubts it.

After his shower, dressed in a t-shirt and sweats, he sits at the small table, laptop open as he looks into the requirements for re-application to law school after a long absence. When his eyes begin to drift shut again, he turns off the computer and crawls into bed, staring up at the ceiling.  _ I’ll have to find a job _ , he thinks.  _ I can’t keep doing credit card scams if I’m gonna live a normal life _ . With a sigh, he adds it to his mental list of things to do and rolls onto his side to sleep.


	2. There Is No Going Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruby finds Sam. Unfortunate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for demon blood detoxing from Sam's POV, vomiting blood, demon blood drinking, and emotional manipulation.

Sam has almost reached the door to the classroom where the law lecture he’s supposed to attend is being held when a wave of dizziness grips him. His right hand slams against the wall to steady himself as he gasps in a deep breath. There’s a clatter as something falls to the floor: his left hand is shaking so bad he’s dropped the notebook and pen he was holding. He tries to fight, tries to center himself by closing his eyes and leaning his forehead against the cool plaster of the wall, but then nausea hits him and he’s dashing for the closest bathroom.

White knuckles grip the rim of the toilet as retching sounds fill the empty stalls. Nothing leaves his mouth, because he hasn’t consumed anything more than a glass of water in the last twenty-four hours. It’s just a heaving chest trying to expel the darkness inside himself, leaving nothing but pain, weakness, and a sore throat.

When his body has decided it’s done the best it can, Sam collapses back against the stall door, breaths heavy and ragged. His vision is blurred, his body is shaking, and his thoughts are jumbled, but there’s one thing he knows for sure: his body is trying to purge the demon blood. What he doesn’t know is if he’ll survive it, or if it’ll kill him and he’ll be back where he belongs.

~~~

He manages to make it through the rest of the day without incident, although he still couldn’t find the stomach to eat anything. As soon as the front door to his tiny studio apartment closes, he drops his lecture notes on the table and falls into bed, groaning. The time on his phone reads 3:04 p.m. Work starts in twenty-six minutes. For a moment, he considers calling in a personal day, but decides against it; it wouldn’t make a good impression to ask for his first day at a new job off.

With a sigh and a tremendous force of will, Sam drags himself off the bed and into the bathroom to prepare for the night. He ignores the bags under his eyes as he washes his face, then runs wet hands through his hair.

His first day as a bartender passes in a blur. When he clocks out for the night at eleven, he knows he’s learned to make about twenty new drinks and seen a list with the mixes for about a hundred more but he couldn’t tell you the names or liquors of any of them. He walks slowly down the street, grateful that he found a job within a mile of his apartment near Stanford. Another wave of dizziness staggers him, but it wasn’t as bad as the one earlier in the day, so he just braces his hand against the solid brick walls of the buildings he passes and keeps walking.

From the shadow of an alley across the street, Ruby watches Sam stumble down the sidewalk. A man appears behind her and speaks. “One more chance. If you continue to fail, our goal will never be accomplished.”

“I know,” she answers, eyes still on Sam. “I’ll break him this time, don’t worry.”

“It’s my job to worry.” The man’s eyes flash black and then he’s gone, leaving Ruby by herself.

~~~

Over the course of a week, Sam’s spasms stop. He does well in his courses and makes a decent bartender, and he starts to believe he can breathe easy.

That’s before he walks out after closing the bar one night to find his boss in a pool of blood.

That’s before his professor has a heart attack in the middle of his lecture two weeks later.

That’s before his spasms start again, a little less than a month after his last one and more intense than they were before.

He does his best to push through them, just as he’d done before, but these are so much worse. More often than not, Sam finds himself vomiting blood into the toilet when his nausea hits. Some days the world spins so rapidly around him that simply trying to sit up results in falling out of bed. He’s missed so many days of work that they’re threatening to fire him, and his professors send him email after email about their fears that he won’t pass the final exams.

One morning, he wakes up fine. No nausea, no dizziness. He prepares for his day like a blind man who’s suddenly gained his sight, all careful movements and extra precautions in case something triggers his spasms and counters his good fortune. His two lectures pass without incident and he even feels hopeful as he goes to work for the first time in a week. He should have known better.

He’s waiting tables tonight, carrying a tray of beers and mixed drinks to a corner booth full of rowdy college students. A sudden pain in his temple makes him hiss and wince, but he shakes his head and keeps moving. The table is three feet away when his legs give out beneath him and he falls, striking his forehead on the table. He’s dazed and groaning, and that’s when he feels it: his stomach is churning as though determined to send everything and itself back up and out. And then he’s retching, what little he managed to eat for lunch and breakfast splattering itself on the floor before it’s joined by blood. The sounds of the horrified patrons nearby barely register in his mind as the world tilts and whirls around him and pain pounds in his head.

A strong grip on his shoulder brings him momentary clarity, and he looks up into the face of a young, blonde woman. “Jess?” he rasps out, confusion and sadness and pain contorting his face.

The woman tilts her head, sympathetically shaking it. “Sir, my name’s Alaina. I’m a nursing student, I’m gonna try to help you until the ambulance gets here. Can you stand?”

He groans and shakes his head. “I-I don’t th-think so…”

“We’re going to try anyways, get you out of the mess.”

“I d-don’t think…” His weak protests are ignored by the blonde woman as she practically drags him to his feet towards the bathroom. She throws haphazard explanations to the people watching,  _ too much alcohol, takes advantage of being a barkeeper, just needs to sleep it off _ , before shoving him through the bathroom door and snapping.

The world spins and tilts and dissolves and reforms around him, and then he’s retching blood onto the floor, a different floor, and the blonde woman is looking down at him in disgust. Then she disappears, and Ruby takes her place. “N-no…” Sam sputters. “No, n-no, you…”

“Sam,” the demon says quietly, kneeling down beside him. “Look at what you’ve done to yourself. Am I always going to have to step in and save you every damn time?” He can’t manage to form a response as his vision blurs out, consciousness slipping away from him due to blood loss. She sighs heavily and raises her arm, the flash of a blade across her forearm drawing his gaze and he realizes what she’s doing.

“No, y-you can’t, p-please…” He tries in vain to push her arm away but then the thick red warmth hits his lips. And he tries to fight it, tries to spit it out and close his mouth but…

Ruby smirks triumphantly as a half-conscious Sam starts sucking the blood from her arm, his lips tight on her skin, tongue tracing down stray drops so as to not miss any. He drinks and he drinks and he drinks, and she can’t help the chuckle that leaves her lips as he finally falls back, sated and covered nose to chin in her blood. Consciousness finally leaves Sam and she heals the cut on her arm before moving him to a bed and setting to work cleaning up the floor.

~~~

“You can’t leave this, Sam,” Ruby says for the thousandth time. “You know you can’t!”

“This isn’t what Dean would want!” Sam shouts, knocking the lamp and phone off the hotel desk.

“So fuck it! Who gives a shit what Dean wants? Dean is dead, Sam. What do  _ you _ want?”

“I want out of all of this! I want a normal life!” His voice breaks on the last word and he falls to his knees.

“You can’t, Sam.” She approaches him, puts a hand on his shoulder. “I’ve told you, over and over. You’ll die without the blood.”

“Then let me die.”

Her nails dig into his skin slightly as she grips his shoulder, but he doesn’t even wince at the pain any more. “Why? Why would you choose to die when there is so much you could do with the power it gives you?”

“Like what? What can I do with this poison?”

“You can save people, Sam.” In her head, she crosses her fingers and prays to all that’s unholy that this will work. “You can save people from demons, and you can stop Lilith from freeing Lucifer.”

“What?”

There’s a waver in his voice, curiosity, and she pounces. “Word’s come from Hell. The first of the Sixty-Six Seals is broken. The demons are trying to start the Apocalypse and Lilith is leading them. She was Lucifer’s first demon, she’s always been loyal to him. And you’re the only one who can stop her, if…” She trails off, letting him finish the statement on his own.

“If I power up on demon blood.” He sounds bitter, resentful. So she adds the final blow.

“Dean broke the first Seal.” She says it quietly, whispered into his ear. “The demons tortured him, endlessly… A month here is ten years in Hell, Sam. Dean’s been down there sixty years now, and all the while they’ve been trying to get him to break, to torture others. Because that’s the first Seal, Sam, getting a righteous man in Hell to torture souls. And he did. They broke him, broke Dean, and now he’s no better than they are, torturing all those poor people down there-”

Sam whirls, hitting her across the face and making her head whip to the side. “You’re lying!”

Ruby snarls at him. “I’m not! I haven’t lied to you, Sam, not ever! I’ve only ever tried to help you, even when it’s put my ass on the line! So believe me or not, it’s a Winchester who started the Apocalypse, so a Winchester’s gotta stop it! Unless you want billions of people to die because you got your brother’s ass dragged to Hell?” And that does it, that puts the nail in the coffin, because he practically collapses.

There’s no tears, he’s past the point of those. Just the hopeless slump of his shoulders, the way he stares lifelessly at his hands lets her know that she’s won. She kneels down in front of him and takes his face in her hands, trying to make him meet her eyes. “I know you’ve always felt like the worthless one,” she says softly. “The son who didn’t quite live up to expectations. Lesser. But you’re not, Sam. You’re strong. You can handle this, you can take the demon blood and use it for something good. I know you can.”

The look he gives her isn’t exactly yes. But it sure as hell isn’t no, and when he nods, slowly, she can barely hide the smug grin that tries to cross her face as she pulls a knife from her belt and holds it over her arm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember to kudos/comment, please! Thanks for reading!


	3. He Does the Duty of Two Sons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam kills Lilith. Castiel makes his debut.

Sam stares at himself in the mirror. He almost doesn’t recognize himself any more. The bags under his eyes are more pronounced than they ever were, his ribs and hipbones are easily seen through his skin, and his clothes hang off his body where once they were fitted.

And yet… he is more powerful now than he has ever been in his life. He can expel demons with a mere thought, and Ruby says he’s one step away from being able to kill them completely without harming the vessels. They’ve been living on the road, traveling from one town to another as they spot the signs of demons. Gone are the shitty roadside motels and diner meals that marked his history with Dean; Ruby insists on well-maintained hotels and room service. She doesn’t tell him where the money comes from, though he couldn’t care less at this point. He barely eats anything anyway, mostly just salads or smoothies; he gets enough blood in his diet as it is, he figures, he doesn’t need the blood of animals too.

Ruby doesn’t say much about his loss of weight. Her only complaints come when they’re fucking, rolling around on the floor like animals after he’s drank from her and is high from the rush of power; that’s when she says he’s too bony, says his hips hurt her. Sam usually ignores her, thinking of all the ways he’d really like to hurt her.

More often than not, though, Sam avoids thinking about her, thinking about what he’s doing. He’s suspected for a long time that she’s grooming him for  _ something _ to do with the supposedly coming apocalypse. She’s always sneaking off to make calls, leaving him locked in the hotel room (as though he couldn’t break the lock with a flick of his fingers). But he doesn’t mention it, just ignores all the signs that something bad is coming, because he just doesn’t care any more. He gave up on caring a long time ago.

He doesn’t think about it because he hates what he’s doing.

~~~

He stares at the ceiling, unable to sleep. Insomnia appears to be a side effect of the demon blood addiction. He hates this part the most, because in the quiet hours of the night, with Ruby’s constant distraction gone as she does whatever it is she does when it’s dark, he can’t stop the thoughts from overwhelming him.

_ Dean would hate what you’ve become. _

That swirls around his thoughts the most. Dean would hate him, and so Sam hates himself in turn. Tonight it’s worse, his thoughts spinning with everyone who would hate to see where he was. Dean, Jess, Brady, Madison, Sarah, Bobby. Their voices ring in his head, reprimanding him and driving him to tears. They slip down his cheeks and stain the pillowcase; he doesn’t bother wiping them away. There’s no one here to see, anyway.

~~~

“Lilith is in town,” Ruby says conversationally, as if she doesn’t know what those words will do to Sam.

“Where?” he asks, straightening. He’d stopped pretending he was pure in his intents concerning the demon blood; despite what he’d said in the motel room nearly a year ago when he’d left her, and his later insistence that he was only drinking it to power up to save lives, he knew he still longed for revenge against the demon who’d sicced her hellhounds on his brother.

“She preparing a ceremony to raise Lucifer in an abandoned church. We have to kill her so that she can’t perform the ceremony.”

“I thought she had to break all sixty-six seals before she could raise Lucifer? Weren’t the angels trying to stop her?”

“They failed, Sam.” She raised an eyebrow. “Especially because you refused to help them by tracking her down immediately after harnessing your powers. She raising Lucifer soon. Do you want to stop her or not?”

He gave her one of his dry fuck-you looks. “Of course I want to stop her. She deserves to die. Tell me where she is.”

“The church is right on the edge of town, a big ugly stone thing. It’s full to the brim of demons, Lilith isn’t taking any chances. But she doesn’t know how much you’ve powered up. And we’ve been collecting for this, anyways.” She motions with her head to the portable cooler. “You’ll have to drink it all, and more fresh, in order to take down Lilith.”

Sam nods, grimacing at the thrill of adrenaline in his veins. Self-hatred rushes through him as he goes to the cooler and opens it to reveal nearly three full gallons of demon blood.

~~~

A flick of his hand sends the doors to the church flying open, letting loose a crowd of demons. Sam barely hesitates, standing his ground and clenching his fists. Ruby stands behind him and watches with a gleeful grin as demons drop left and right, flashes of light showing through skin as they’re destroyed from within. The humans they are possessing lay on the ground unconscious, and as the last one falls, Ruby fulfills her role and sends them all to their homes with a snap. Sam moves forward into the church, his skills on full display, and Ruby follows.

The reach the sanctuary where Lilith is in a matter of minutes. As the doors slam open, the demon spins to face Sam, eyes wide in fear. “Sam, wait-”

“You’re not going to change my mind, demon,” he says, raising his hand in her direction.

“We’ve all been misled! This isn’t what you think!”

“Shut up!” He clenches his fist, and Lilith begins to scream, light flashing through her body. Sam’s eyes slowly go black as he uses his powers to drag the life from the demon, and then she collapses, head hitting the stone altar behind her. His eyes return to normal as he watches the limp body fall forward. Then he heaves in a shuddering breath, unaware he’d been holding it. Blood spreads out from Lilith’s prone body, likely stemming from where the head had struck the stone.

Ruby moves in front of him, face absolutely gleeful. “We did it! Sam, we did it!” She turns and tries to kiss him, but he pushes her away, disgusted and feeling as though he was going to vomit. She frowns. “Sam, what’s wrong?”

The blood is still moving, he notices. Moving… into a circle. He frowns. “Ruby… what the hell did we do?”

“Lucifer is free!” she says, that wide grin back on her face. “Killing Lilith was the last seal. He’s coming, now, look!” The blood had finished its circle and was now sending out spokes towards the center.

“What??” Sam looks at her with wide eyes. “We  _ freed _ Lucifer? I thought that was what we were trying  _ not _ to do?”

“Silly boy,” she says, dancing closer to puts her hands on his cheeks. “I needed you to raise Lucifer, you were the only one who could be strong enough to kill Lilith. And you’re Lucifer’s true vessel, you had to be here when he rose.” She glances at the blood sigil, grinning again and turning away from Sam. “He’ll be so proud of me! We’re going to be amazing, Sammy!”

The nickname sends him reeling, and then he’s angry, angrier than he’s ever felt. “You liar! I trusted you!”

“Yeah, ‘cause I’m fucking awesome!” She looks maniacal in the light pouring from the sigil now. “I had you wrapped right around my finger, Sam, and you never even realized.”

He shouts, an incoherent scream of rage, and rushes at her, slamming her into the wall. “You’ll pay for that, bitch,” he growls, and then uses the last of his power to drag the life from her. Light flashes as she screams, and then she goes limp in his grip.

Sam steps back, all the energy sapped from him, and he collapses on his knees. He watches powerlessly as a portal opens from the blood sigil.

||  _ SAM WINCHESTER _ ||

The voice echoes in his head, loud and abrasive and  _ wrong _ .

||  _ YOU ARE MY VESSEL, SAM. YOU KNOW YOU BELONG WITH ME.  _ ||

“No,” Sam whispers, covering his ears and cowering. “No, this isn’t what I wanted.”

“Sam!!” A new, unfamiliar,  _ real _ voice reaches him over the din in his mind, and he looks up to see a strange man in a trenchcoat running towards him. “Sam Winchester, do not give in! For Dean’s sake, do not!”

“What-” Sam begins to ask, a thousand questions on his tongue, but then the man reaches him, outstretched hand touching his forehead. The world tilts around him and he gets a glimpse of a familiar junkyard before all goes black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm actually proud of myself for getting this written in one evening. Remember to leave kudos/comments!!

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave kudos and/or comments!! I'd love to know your thoughts, where you think the story is going, and what you'd like to see addressed!


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